I am pretty new to the VM stuff so this may be crazy but... what the heck
Since most VM's represent special objects ( i.e. nil true false smallints ) in a much smaller space than real objects would it be possible to have a class with a few booleans optimize and pack them in a way to use just 1 bit each ( Granted we can do this ourselfs) Could other packing schemes also be built in? Do smalltalks with optimizing compiler directives exist? It would seem we could make smaller images if this stuff exsited. It could especially be useful if a mainstream web-plugin for smalltalk becomes popular.
Also, Has squeak been ported to be a web plugin yet?
Also, I remember reading or hearing about the concept of micro vm's ( VM's that sort of ship with the code ) and lately this seems like it could become closer and closer to possible in production. Are their any papers on this topic? When I saw pocket smalltalk and the 20k VM it struck me that you make that a 20k DST VM and we are on the verge of micro VM's. I see we have a mini squeak, how about a micro squeak?
Cheers, Steve
squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org